Hard Contract (1969)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

S. Lee Pogostin

Writer:

S. Lee Pogostin (writer)

Release Date:

23 June 1969 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Love. Murder. Everything they do is 97% control and 3% emotion.

Plot:

A cold hearted American hit man goes to Europe for 'one last score'. His encounter with a beautiful young woman casts self doubt on his lifeblood, and influences him to resist carrying out the contract |

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

James Coburn	...	John Cunningham
Lee Remick	...	Sheila Metcalfe
Lilli Palmer	...	Adrianne
Burgess Meredith	...	Ramsey Williams
Patrick Magee	...	Alexi
Sterling Hayden	...	Michael Carlson
Claude Dauphin	...	Maurice
Helen Cherry	...	Evelyn Carlson
Karen Black	...	Ellen
Sabine Sun	...	Belgian Prostitute
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Miquel Bordoy
Gerda Marchand
Vic Moeremans
Jo Nupie	...	Flemish lady

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Canada:R (Nova Scotia) | Iceland:12 | West Germany:18 | Norway:16 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:R

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Quotes:

John Cunningham: Murder is obsolete.
Ramsey Williams: I'm an old-fashioned man and I prefer and old-fanshioned contract. Get back to me when death is obsolete.
John Cunningham: It is obsolete! It's all obsolete! How do you think bitching became so big?

"Watch And See"

Ponderous? At times. Pretentious? Sure, a little. But what a strange, sumptuous, utterly hypnotic experience this is. I haven't seen all that many from this time period but it is quite unlike anything else I can think of. There are stylistic similarities to Nicholas Roeg I guess, with intentionally disorienting editing and jarring perspectives, but that's about all that comes to mind. And perhaps Richard Rush's great "THE STUNT MAN". The seamless, fluid dissolves are what stick with me the most; just the way cryptic little bits of dialogue evaporate at the end of one scene and haunt the next. The movie has an elusive, swirling quality; watching it you sometimes have the feeling that you are weightless and that this is a vision of some afterlife or parallel world.

It's really driving at something, this film. Its many enigmatic characters are constantly circling each other, digging, trying to figure out what makes them tick, whether or not they're one of "them" or one of "us". Made in 1969, I think the film is an understandably confused, troubled reaction to what was undoubtedly an incredibly turbulent decade. Its biggest fear is that terror and violence have become so commonplace they are no longer the exclusive property of evil. "Good" may use them too in steadily increasing proportions, and soon the two are indistinguishable. But there is also a sense of some small hope here, a chance for redemption, rebirth. James Coburn's last bitten off words echo chillingly as the credits roll: "Watch And See. Watch And See".